Netflix accounts for as much as 15% of the total downstream traffic on the internet

New data shows that Netflix accounts for as much as 15% of the total downstream volume of traffic across the entire internet.

And when looking at all video streaming traffic, the video on demand service beats the likes of YouTube and other HTTP streaming, accounting for almost 27% of all category traffic.

The data comes from Sandvine, a provider of Network Intelligence solutions, through its Global Internet Phenomena Report for 2018.

The data is drawn from the group’s installed base of over 150 Tier 1 and Tier 2 fixed and mobile operators worldwide.

The report does not include significant data from either China or India, but the data represents a portion of Sandvine’s 2.1 billion subscribers install base – a statistically significant segment of the internet population.

The top 9 applications worldwide are either web or video, clearly indicating where consumers spend their data allowances on networks, if not necessarily their time, Sandvine said.

According to the report, voice assistants – Alexa versus Siri – is a network dead heat, with each one representing .05% of connections worldwide, and Alexa at 97th and Siri at 102nd.

On cryptocurrency, Bitcoin and Ethereum are also growing on the internet.

Ethereum was .01% of all connections (277th worldwide), showing it is gaining market momentum.

Additional highlights from the report include:

Video is almost 58% of the total downstream volume of traffic on the internet.

Gaming is becoming a significant force in traffic volume as gaming downloads, Twitch streaming, and professional gaming go mainstream.

BitTorrent is almost 22% of total upstream volume of traffic, and over 31% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa alone.

Alphabet/Google applications make up over 40% of the total internet connections in Asia-Pacific.

Spotlights on the traffic share leaders for video, social networking, messaging, audio streaming, and gaming.

It is not a surprise that streaming video is the top application type on the internet, said Sandvine. “If you had asked anyone what category of application they thought would be at the top, video would win by a landslide.”

What might not have been expected is the gains that other application types have made even while video continues to drive downstream bandwidth usage. Gaming has gained in relevance, and file sharing has experienced a bit of a resurgence, the report said.